INDIAN COMPUTING OLYMPIAD

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Announcements

  • Registration for ZCO-2024 open  ...

  • Indian team wins 4 medals, including a gold medal, at IOI-2023  ...

  • Indian team wins 2 medals and 2 Honourable Mentions at EGOI-2023  ...

  • Indian wins four medals, including 2 gold medals, at APIO-2023  ...

About the Indian Computing Olympiad

The Indian Computing Olympiad is a nationwide competition organized annually by IARCS. The goal of the competition is to identify school students with outstanding skills in algorithms and computer programming.

The Indian Computing Olympiad is used to select the team of four students to represent India at the International Olympiad for Informatics (IOI). IOI is one of the twelve international Science Olympiads held annually. Other prominent Science Olympiads include Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Astronomy.

Eligibility

The Indian Computing Olympiad is open to all school students across the country, from any school board. Any student registered in school upto class 12 during the academic year 2023-2024 is eligible to take part in ICO during 2023-2024. There is no lower age limit for participation.

To participate, you must still be in school. If you have completed Class 12, you are no longer eligible, even if you have taken a break and are not enrolled in college, or if are planning to redo your Class 12 exams for improvement.

Registration

Registration for ZIO-2024 will open shortly. Registration for ZCO-2024 will open in the second half of November, 2023.

Stages

The first round of the Indian Computing Olympiad is in two parts.

  • The Zonal Informatics Olympiad (ZIO) is a written exam held at centres across the country. ZIO-2024 will be held on 3 December, 2023.

  • The Zonal Computing Olympiad (ZCO) is a programming exam held at centres across the country. The programming languages supported are C, C++, Java and Python. ZCO-2024 will be held on 7 January, 2024.

  • Students can write either ZIO or ZCO or both and qualify through either exam for the second round.

The second round, the Indian National Olympiad in Informatics (INOI) involves programming. The only programming language allowed for INOI is C++. INOI-2024 will be held in January–February, 2024.

Approximately 30 students are selected from INOI for the IOI Training Camp (IOITC). IOITC is normally organized in May or June. IOITC-2023 was held during 6–12 June, 2023.

IOI-2023 was hosted by Hungary. IOI-2024 will be hosted by Egypt.

How to prepare for ICO

  • The syllabus for ZIO and ZCO is the list of Basic Topics in the Online Study Material  ...

  • The syllabus for INOI is given here  ...

  • Go through the Online Study Material for ICO.

  • Mentoring programme for ZCO, INOI and IOITC by past IOITC participants  ...

  • Preparatory material for ICO on CodeChef  ...

  • ICO Learning Program to prepare for ICO, weekly sessions by CodeChef volunteers  ...

  • Solve problems online at the IARCS Problems Archive  ...

  • Commonlounge community archives  ...

Incentives for students

Codechef conducts a monthly programming contest Lunch Time through Codechef for Schools and offers incentives for IOI through the Go for Gold for IOI programme  ...

The following academic institutions in India have special admission procedures for ICO students. Please check directly with each institution about the eligibility criteria and procedure for applying.

  • Chennai Mathematical Institute offers direct admission to students who win gold/silver medals at INOI or are selected for IOITC in Class 11 or 12  ...

  • IIIT Delhi offers bonus points to students selected for INOI and IOITC  ...

  • IIIT Hyderabad offers admission via the Olympiad category to students selected for IOITC  ...

  • IIT Gandhinagar offers admission via the Olympiad category to students selected for IOITC  ...

The following international academic institutions have special admission procedures for IOI students. Please check directly with each institution about the eligibility criteria and procedure for applying.

  • The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology has a scholarship scheme for selected IOI and APIO medallists  ...

  • Nanyang Technical University (NTU), Singapore offers special consideration for IOI medallists  ...

  • National University of Singapore (NUS) offers special consideration for IOI medallists and INOI gold medallists  ...

Contact

Please write to Madhavan Mukund, National Coordinator, Indian Computing Olympiad at ico@iarcs.org.in if you have any questions or clarifications.

Our partners

The Indian Computing Olympiad is held in partnership with:

From 2001-2002 to 2013-2014, ZIO and INOI were coordinated through the Central Board for Secondary Education (CBSE). ZCO-2016, INOI-2016 and ZCO-2017 were held on the TCS iON platform. Jed-i provided administrative support from 2013 to 2015.




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